Knights Templar
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, also known as the Order of Solomon's Temple, the Knights Templar or simply as Templars, were a Catholic military order. The order was founded in 1119 and active from about 1129 to 1312. The Knights Templar were occasionally at odds with the two other Christian military orders, the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights. These orders were not associated with any government in particular, being a wider scope organization. The order, which was among the wealthiest and most powerful active at the time, became a favored charity throughout Christendom and grew rapidly in membership and power, due to often providing aid much better than the local authorities. They were prominent in Christian finance. Templar knights, in their distinctive white mantles with a red cross, were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades. Non-combatant members of the order, who formed as much as 90% of the order's members, managed a large economic infrastructure throughout Christendom, developing innovative financial techniques that were an early form of banking, building its own network of nearly 1,000 commanderies and fortifications across Europe and the Holy Land, and arguably forming the world's first multinational corporation. General info The Templars were closely tied to the Crusades; when the Holy Land was seen as permanently lost, support for the order faded. Rumours about the Templars' secret initiation ceremony created distrust, as well as jealousy by rulers due to peasants turning to the order rather than them for aid. King Philip IV of France – deeply in debt to the order – took advantage of the situation to gain control over them. In 1307, he had many of the order's members in France arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and burned at the stake. Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312 under pressure from King Philip. The abrupt reduction in power of a significant group in European society gave rise to speculation, legend, and legacy through the ages. The appropriation of their name by later organizations has kept the name "Templar" alive to the present day, while helping to obscure its origin. The knights templar are a mid level basis for contextualizing megaten. For instance, in SMTI and II, the temple knights are referred to as the main group of warriors fighting on the law side under the messian church. And temple knights are a term synonymous with knights templar, just with the words rearranged. In imagine they are called knights templar outright, with the cloth of the knights templar being a high ranking male outfit one can be bestowed. The temple knights in-game have an aesthetic that calls the knights templar to mind, both by using a cross in shield as a symbol, as well as this symbol being on the top left of their cloak. There are of course a few reasons for this. For one, obviously law's universalist / ideological dynamic is placed in contrast with chaos being more about fighting for your own interest. And so relating them to crusaders ties to how historical crusaders often thought they were fighting for a universal christendom (At least on paper) that was more about spreading ideology than personal interest. Crusaders are a heavy aesthetic of the law side's military in the early games as a whole. And of course the religious dynamic means that its army would see itself in a somewhat religious light. Which makes sense to tie with the idea of an organization that was explicitly religious in context. In addition to this, in SMTI law is introduced as the conspiracy. And so the templar aesthetic is likely meant to tie to law's originally conspiratorial nature. Being depicted both like a crusader, but also like a secret society in a sense. This is expanded on in II. In II the church, and associated temple knights becomes corrupt. The game references the templars being accused of using idols by showing the church using chaos demons. One major example is belphegor, but they also have a baphomet in-game also. In keeping with the templar trials that accused the historical templars of worshiping baphomet. In-game baphomet does not explicitly say he is working with them, but he is seen guarding the sealed kunitsukami who were sealed by the center. And gaians are talking about the desire to unseal them. So it seems he is on the center's side there. Doubly so because he is fought very close to belphegor, who likewise represents an idea of religious abrhamic corruption, being based on a biblical event. In later games, the demon baphomet who casually talks as if he was the idol of the historical templars at one point. Referencing how the accusations against them came up with this name, claiming it was a being they prayed to. Though this has little historical basis. This is one reason for baphomet showing up as vile race, being seen as a demonized entity. Note how vile is dark law, and he was on the dark law side in II. Although in II his personal alignment is something else. Practices Bernard de Clairvaux and founder Hugues de Payens devised the specific code of behaviour for the Templar Order, known to modern historians as the Latin Rule. Its 72 clauses defined the ideal behaviour for the Knights, such as the types of garments they were to wear and how many horses they could have. Knights were to take their meals in silence, eat meat no more than three times per week, and not have physical contact of any kind with women, even members of their own family. A Master of the Order was assigned "4 horses, and one chaplain-brother and one clerk with three horses, and one sergeant brother with two horses, and one gentleman valet to carry his shield and lance, with one horse."75 As the order grew, more guidelines were added, and the original list of 72 clauses was expanded to several hundred in its final form. The knights wore a white surcoat with a red cross and a white mantle also with a red cross; the sergeants wore a black tunic with a red cross on the front and a black or brown mantle. The white mantle was assigned to the Templars at the Council of Troyes in 1129, and the cross was most probably added to their robes at the launch of the Second Crusade in 1147. The red cross that the Templars wore on their robes was a symbol of martyrdom, and to die in combat was considered a great honour that assured a place in heaven. There was a threefold division of the ranks of the Templars: the noble knights, the non-noble sergeants, and the chaplains. The Templars did not perform knighting ceremonies, so any knight wishing to become a Knight Templar had to be a knight already.68 They were the most visible branch of the order, and wore the famous white mantles to symbolise their purity and chastity. Starting with founder Hugues de Payens in 1118–1119, the order's highest office was that of Grand Master, a position which was held for life History After Europeans in the First Crusade recovered Jerusalem in 1099, many Christians made pilgrimages to various sacred sites in the Holy Land. Although the city of Jerusalem was relatively secure under Christian control, the rest of Outremer was not. Bandits and marauding highwaymen preyed upon pilgrims, who were routinely slaughtered, sometimes by the hundreds, as they attempted to make the journey from the coastline at Jaffa through to the interior of the Holy Land. In 1119, the French knight Hugues de Payens approached King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and proposed creating a monastic order for the protection of these pilgrims. They were granted permission and given land over the temple mount. The Temple Mount had a mystique because it was above what was believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. Thus giving context to why they became associated with solomon. The original order, with about nine knights including Godfrey de Saint-Omer and André de Montbard, had few financial resources and relied on donations to survive. Their emblem was of two knights riding on a single horse, emphasising the order's poverty. The impoverished status of the Templars did not last long. Saint Bernard put his weight behind them and wrote persuasively on their behalf in the letter 'In Praise of the New Knighthood'. in 1129, at the Council of Troyes, he led a group of leading churchmen to officially approve and endorse the order on behalf of the church. With this formal blessing, the Templars became a favoured charity throughout Christendom, receiving money, land, businesses, and noble-born sons from families who were eager to help with the fight in the Holy Land. Another major benefit came in 1139, when Pope Innocent II's papal bull Omne Datum Optimum exempted the order from obedience to local laws. This ruling meant that the Templars could pass freely through all borders, were not required to pay any taxes, and were exempt from all authority except that of the pope. Although the primary mission of the order was militaristic, relatively few members were combatants. The others acted in support positions to assist the knights and to manage the financial infrastructure. The Templar Order, though its members were sworn to individual poverty, was given control of wealth beyond direct donations. In 1150 began generating letters of credit for pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land: pilgrims deposited their valuables with a local Templar preceptory before embarking, received a document indicating the value of their deposit, then used that document upon arrival in the Holy Land to retrieve their funds in an amount of treasure of equal value. This innovative arrangement was an early form of banking and may have been the first formal system to support the use of cheques; it improved the safety of pilgrims by making them less attractive targets for thieves, and also contributed to the Templar coffers. In the mid-12th century, the tide began to turn in the Crusades. The Muslim world had become more united under effective leaders such as Saladin, and dissension arose amongst Christian factions in, and concerning, the Holy Land, with the idea of future crusades ultimately deemed a futile endeavor. They were repeatedly forced to abandon territory close to it, moving back more towards europe. With the order's military mission now less important, support for the organization began to dwindle. The situation was complex, however, since during the two hundred years of their existence, the Templars had become a part of daily life throughout Christendom. The organisation's Templar Houses, hundreds of which were dotted throughout Europe and the Near East, gave them a widespread presence at the local level. The Templars still managed many businesses, and many Europeans had daily contact with the Templar network. The order was still not subject to local government, making it everywhere a "state within a state"—its standing army, though it no longer had a well-defined mission, could pass freely through all borders. This situation heightened tensions with some European nobility, especially as the Templars were indicating an interest in founding their own monastic state, just as the Teutonic Knights had done in Prussia and the Knights Hospitaller were doing in Rhodes. In 1305, the new Pope Clement V, based in Avignon, France, sent letters to both the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and the Hospitaller Grand Master Fulk de Villaret to discuss the possibility of merging the two orders. Neither was amenable to the idea, but Pope Clement persisted, and in 1306 he invited both Grand Masters to France to discuss the matter. This led to tensions, and the bringing up of potential criminal influence. According to some historians, King Philip, who was already deeply in debt to the Templars from his war with the English, decided to seize upon the rumours for his own purposes. He began pressuring the church to take action against the order, as a way of freeing himself from his debts. At dawn on Friday, 13 October 1307 (a date sometimes linked with the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition) King Philip IV ordered de Molay and scores of other French Templars to be simultaneously arrested. The arrest warrant started with the phrase: is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom". Claims were made that during Templar admissions ceremonies, recruits were forced to spit on the Cross, deny Christ, and engage in indecent kissing; brethren were also accused of worshipping idols, and the order was said to have encouraged homosexual practices. The Templars were charged with numerous other offences such as financial corruption, fraud, and secrecy. Many of the accused confessed to these charges under torture, and their confessions, even though obtained under duress, caused a scandal in Paris. Relenting to Phillip's demands, Pope Clement then issued the papal bull Pastoralis Praeeminentiae on 22 November 1307, which instructed all Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest all Templars and seize their assets. Pope Clement called for papal hearings to determine the Templars' guilt or innocence, and once freed of the Inquisitors' torture, many Templars recanted their confessions. Philip blocked this attempt, using the previously forced confessions to have dozens of Templars burned at the stake in Paris. With Philip threatening military action unless the pope complied with his wishes, Pope Clement finally agreed to disband the order, citing the public scandal that had been generated by the confessions. With the last of the order's leaders gone, the remaining Templars around Europe were either arrested and tried under the Papal investigation (with virtually none convicted), absorbed into other military orders such as the Knights Hospitaller, or pensioned off and allowed to live out their days peacefully. Baphomet Baphomet is a term originally used to describe an idol or other deity that the Knights Templar were accused of worshipping and that subsequently was incorporated into disparate occult and mystical traditions. It appeared as a term for a pagan idol in trial transcripts of the Inquisition of the Knights Templar in the early 14th century. The name first came into popular English usage in the 19th century, with debate and speculation on the reasons for the suppression of the Templars. There is no historical evidence however that this idol ever existed, and many believe that it was an accusation of them converting to islam with a butchered understanding of islam, where mohammad the name was converted to the term baphomet and seen as a pagan idol. Since 1856, the name Baphomet has been associated with a "Sabbatic Goat" image drawn by Eliphas Levi which contains binary elements representing the "sum total of the universe" (e.g. male and female, good and evil, etc.). On one hand, Lévi's intention was to symbolize his concept of "the equilibium of the opposites" that was essential to his magnetistic notion of the Astral Light; on the other hand, the Baphomet represents a heretical tradition that should result in a perfect social order, a notion that can only be understood against Lévi's socialist background. It was added into the cosmology of thelema as used by crowley, and later became one of the main symbols for satanism. When the medieval order of the Knights Templar was suppressed by King Philip IV of France, on Friday October 13, 1307, Philip had many French Templars simultaneously arrested, and then tortured into confessions. Over 100 different charges had been leveled against the Templars. Most of them were dubious, as they were the same charges that were leveled against the Cathars. The name Baphomet comes up in several of these confessions. Peter Partner states in his 1987 book The Knights Templar and their Myth, "In the trial of the Templars one of their main charges was their supposed worship of a heathen idol-head known as a 'Baphomet. The description of the object changed from confession to confession. Some Templars denied any knowledge of it. Others, under torture, described it as being either a severed head, a cat, or a head with three faces. None of the descriptions resembled the later modern baphomet art. The Templars did possess several silver-gilt heads as reliquaries, including one marked capud lviii, another said to be St. Euphemia, and possibly the actual head of Hugues de Payens. The claims of an idol named Baphomet were unique to the Inquisition of the Templars. Karen Ralls, author of the Knights Templar Encyclopedia, argues that it is significant that "no specific evidence Baphomet appears in either the Templar Rule or in other medieval period Templar documents." Auserand de Montpesant, a knight of Provence, said that their superior showed him an idol made in the form of Baffomet; another, named Raymond Rubei, described it as a wooden head, on which the figure of Baphomet was painted, and adds, "that he worshipped it by kissing its feet, and exclaiming, 'Yalla,' which was," he says, "verbum Saracenorum," a word taken from the Saracens. A templar of Florence declared that, in the secret chapters of the order, one brother said to the other, showing the idol, "Adore this head—this head is your god and your Mahomet." Modern scholars such as Peter Partner and Malcolm Barber agree that the name of Baphomet was an Old French corruption of the name Muhammad, with the interpretation being that some of the Templars, through their long military occupation of the Outremer, had begun incorporating Islamic ideas into their belief system, and that this was seen and documented by the Inquisitors as heresy. Alain Demurger, however, rejects the idea that the Templars could have adopted the doctrines of their enemies. Helen Nicholson writes that the charges were essentially "manipulative"—the Templars "were accused of becoming fairy-tale Muslims." Medieval Christians believed that Muslims were idolatrous and worshipped Muhammad as a god, with mahomet becoming mammet in English, meaning an idol or false god. This idol-worship is attributed to Muslims in several chansons de geste. For example, one finds the gods Bafum e Travagan in a Provençal poem on the life of St. Honorat, completed in 1300. In the Chanson de Simon Pouille, written before 1235, a Saracen idol is called Bafumetz. As described above, megaten references this idea of templars getting corrupt and worshipping baphomet a few times. First in II, and then later if you fuse baphomet in some games he talks about it. Legacy The story of the persecution and sudden dissolution of the secretive yet powerful medieval Templars has drawn many other groups to use alleged connections with them as a way of enhancing their own image and mystery. The Knights Templar were dismantled in the Rolls of the Catholic Church in 1309 with the martyrdom of Jacques de Molay; there is no clear historical connection between them and any modern organization, the earliest of which emerged publicly in the 18th century. But they are often in the public consciousness or in fiction associated with secret societies. For instance, freemasonry has incorporated the symbols and rituals of several medieval military orders in a number of Masonic bodies since the 18th century at least. This can be seen in the "Red Cross of Constantine," inspired by the Military Constantinian Order; the "Order of Malta," inspired by the Knights Hospitaller; and the "Order of the Temple", inspired by the Knights Templar. The Orders of Malta and the Temple feature prominently in the York Rite. One theory on the origin of Freemasonry claims direct descent from the historical Knights Templar through its final fourteenth-century members who allegedly took refuge in Scotland and aided Robert the Bruce in his victory at Bannockburn. This theory is usually rejected by both Masonic authorities and historians due to lack of evidence. Freemasonry too gets associated with secret societies, which lends to the idea of the templar aesthetic being associated with them. Obviously, again, as stated above, megaten rides off of this trend of depicting the knights templar or derivatives of them in association with modern groups. Although notably, in-game there is no clear indication given of the temple knights being associated with the historical templars via continuity, merely recreating the aesthetic. The order of messiah in-game being depicted as a modern religion formed from syncretic christian strains absorbing aspects of other ideas.